A new paper outlines how flexible conservation pools could help protect the Colorado River's two largest reservoirs during increasingly severe drought years. Lake Powell and Lake Mead are approaching historically low water levels under current management guidelines.
The Bureau of Reclamation's April 2026 projections showed Lake Powell could fall below 3,500 feet this year, that’s below the needed elevation to sustain hydropower production. To prevent this, Reclamation plans to release additional water from an upstream reservoir while reducing Lake Powell releases, an approach that strains Upper Basin supplies and raises Colorado River Compact compliance concerns in the Lower Basin.
The paper proposes treating already-conserved water as operationally neutral, allowing flexible conservation pools to shift water between Lake Mead and Lake Powell without affecting Lower Basin shortage calculations or compact accounting. Roughly 3.3 million acre-feet of this water is currently stored in Lake Mead, and moving a portion upstream could ease pressure on Lake Powell without the legal and political complications tied to current operating methods.
Guidelines for managing the river expire this year, and several proposed alternatives under consideration incorporate this type of pool, reducing reliance on upstream releases while limiting compact compliance risk in future dry years.
